The Internal Revenue Service’s decision to single out conservative groups
for extra scrutiny has brought a fresh dose of attention to the tea
party, a once thriving movement that has waned in the years since the
2010 GOP wave election. Will the fact that the agency targeted groups with “tea party” and
“patriot” in their names reignite the energy of limited-government
activists and groups who have warned of the perils of overreach?
Republicans both in and outside the movement think it could give them a
boost on several fronts.

Ya think?

Now, for some pathetic spin from an Obama Firster...

'The floodgates were opened by Citizens United, and there
was apparently a torrent of newly eligible, politically-driven groups
applying for nonprofit status. But no one has released any numbers on
what number were conservative vs moderate vs liberal or provided any
rationale for the possibly illegal and completely unacceptable targeting
of certain organizations for extra scrutiny.'

bayam on May 15, 2013 at 4:23 PM

Oh,
puhlease.

While
the team of specialists reviewed applications from a variety of organizations,
we determined during our reviews of statistical samples of I.R.C. § 501(c)(4)
tax-exempt applications that all cases
with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names were forwarded to the team of
specialists.

Got
that?

ALL groups
with ‘Tea Party,’ ‘Patriots,’ and ’9/12′ in their names were singled out…every
single one.

The director of the
Internal Revenue Service division under fire for singling out conservative
groups sent a 2012 letter under her name to one such group, POLITICO has
learned. The March 2012 letter was sent to
the Ohio-based American Patriots Against Government Excess (American PAGE)
under the name of Lois Lerner, the director of the Exempt Organizations
Division…at the time of the letter, the group was in the midst
of the application process for tax-exempt nonprofit status — a process that
would stretch for nearly three years and involve queries for detailed
information on its social media activity, its organizational set-up, bylaws,
membership and interactions with political officials.The letter threatened to close American PAGE’s case file
unless additional information was received within 60 days.

In February 2010, the
Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from
the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked. That was the month before the Internal
Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn’t be another Tea Party application approved
for 27 months. In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications
from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data
shows. As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding
names had their applications approved in as little as nine months.
With names including words like “Progress” or “Progressive,” the liberal groups
applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of
activities as the conservative groups.

President
Barack Obama’s executive staff reviewed Watchdog’s news website in record
numbers at precisely the moment when Internal Revenue Service visits to
the same site spiked, Watchdog.org’s analyticsshow.

A
similar report reveals that the Executive Office of the President and IRS were
the source of a similar December traffic spike on the website of Watchdog.org,
the online news network of theFranklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.
(Updated: an earlier version of this incorrectly reported that traffic spiked
in January.)

The
White House has said that IRS reviews of conservative nonprofits were
procedurally “inappropriate on the part of fairly low-level agents.

This
new data suggests at least a coincidence of interests in Watchdog.

According
to Google analytics, the IRS generated 456 unique visitors, between January
2009 and May 2013. The report notes 552 visits and 709 page views from the IRS.
Most of the traffic occurred between the second half of 2012 and this week.

One
day in December, watchdog.org
received more than 100 visits from the tax agency.

The
analytics show 60 unique visitors and 84 page views to Watchdog.org from eop.gov, the
Executive Office of the President, between December 2009 and May 2013.

The
IRS has apologized in recent days for targeting conservative organizations
applying for tax-exempt status. Republicans are calling for criminal
prosecutions, and the FBI is now investigating.

The
source of White House visits, eop.gov, redirects visitors to the official White House
website. A message on that redirect reads, “You have requested a page on
EOP.gov and have been redirected here. EOP.gov is a domain operated by the
Executive Office of the President. WhiteHouse.gov is the public-facing website
for the EOP.”

Watchdog.org
is a free-market oriented news organization with reporters in several state
capitals, each focused on waste, fraud and abuse in local government. The news
site’s parent Franklin Center, its site says, focuses its efforts on “driving a
conversation about transparency, accountability, and fiscal responsibility at
the grassroots level and putting a human face on public policy.”

M.D.
Kittle contributed

Will
Swaim is managing editor of Watchdog.org. Contact Swaim at wswaim@watchdog.org

UPDATE: 75% of the
Political Donations From IRS Employees in Cincinnati Went To Democrats

Tim Carney looks at the donations records for
IRS employees in Cincinnati and finds a lesson about big government. Whether or
not the White House was handing down directives, when federal power is as broad
as it is now, partisan abuse by cogs in the state’s machinery is inevitable.
Smoking gun?

In the past three
election cycles, the Center for Responsive Politics’ database shows about
$474,000 in political donations by individuals listing “IRS” or “Internal
Revenue Service” as their employer.

This money heavily
favors Democrats: $247,000 to $145,000, with the rest going to political action
committees. (Oddly, half of those GOP donations come from only two IRS
employees, one in Houston and one in Annandale, Va.)

IRS employees also
gave $67,000 to the PAC of the National Treasury Employees Union, which in turn
gave more than 96 percent of its contributions to Democrats. Add the PAC cash
to the individual donations and IRS employees favor Democrats 2-to-1.

The Cincinnati office
where the political targeting took place is much more partisan, judging by FEC
filings. More than 75 percent of the campaign contributions from that office in
the past three elections went to Democrats. In 2012, every donation traceable to employees at that office went
to either President Obama or liberal Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

As
someone noted on Twitter in response to Carney’s post, if you’ve made your career
working in government — especially at the IRS — you have a heavy political
interest in protecting the party of big government.

I’m
leery of touting any single group’s allegations but the Thomas More Society has
looked at the following and evidently thinks there’s enough evidenceto
justify taking on the Coalition for Life of Iowa as a client. No one’s alleging
an agency-wide pro-choice policy, but this may well illustrate the tremendous
power individual IRS agents have to quietly discourage political activity of
which they disapprove. The news about tea-party groups being targeted gets
headlines because it’s about systematic bias, but how often does the particular
bias of an, ahem, “rogue” employee cause delays or denials for disfavored orgs?

In
one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for
Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa
leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent “Ms. Richards” told the group to send a
letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under
perjury of the law, they do not
picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned
Parenthood.
Once the IRS received this letter, their application would be approved. After a
series of letters following a request for more invasive information, Thomas
More Society special counsel Sally Wagenmaker sent a letter to the IRS
demanding the tax exempt status be issued immediately…

In
another similar case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for
charitable tax-exempt recognition of Christian Voices for Life, questioning the
group’s involvement with “40 Days for Life” and “Life Chain” events. The Fort
Bend County, Texas, organization was subjected to repeated and lengthy
unconstitutional requests for information about the viewpoint and content of
its educational communications, volunteer prayer vigils, and other protected
activities.

Two
cases doesn’t prove a “policy” but it’s a start. More on this, please.
Meanwhile, here’s a pro tip from a former Republican National Committee staffer:
If you change the name of your organization to something that sounds more
liberal, it might just speed up your approval time. Go figure:

He submitted the
paperwork to the IRS in July 2011 for a news site called Media Trackers, which
calls itself a “non-partisan investigative watchdog dedicated to promoting
accountability in the media and government.” Although the site has investigated
Republicans like Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, the site’s
organizers are unapologetically conservative…

When September 2012
arrived with still no word from the IRS, Ryun determined that Media Trackers
would likely never obtain standalone non-profit status, and he tried a new
approach: Starting over. He applied for permanent non-profit status for a
separate group called Greenhouse Solutions, a pre-existing organization that
was reaching the end of its determination period.

The IRS approved Greenhouse
Solutions’ request for non-profit status in three weeks…

In December 2012,
Ryun simply made Media Trackers a project of Greenhouse Solutions and withdrew
the Media Trackers application.

If
you’re planning to apply for 501(c)(4) status for your own group, replace “tea
party” or “patriot” with “occupy” and see how you do. It might spare you from
having to submit the names of children your group is trying to help. Good lord.